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In the 1892 Arthur Conan Doyle short story, The Adventure of the Silver Blaze, Doyle's master detective Sherlock Holmes is asked by a Scotland Yard constable what was noteworthy about the case they were working on together. He draws the policeman's attention to "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." When the constable responds that the dog did nothing in the night-time, Holmes answers back, "That was the curious incident."

The last time we heard from the gang at MoviePass was last Thursday when it made the announcement of MoviePass 147.0 (or is it 148.0, I lost count). The latest plan limits the number of films members can see each month as well as the availability of movies and showtimes. The declaration caused yet another avalanche of bad publicity and innumerable articles proclaiming this to be the final death knell for the company as if Van Helsing had found the hammer and was poised to drive a stake through Dracula's heart.

But here we are five days later -- decades in MoviePass years -- and we've been treated to no new publicity fiascos, no further alterations to its model, and no announcements of limiting films that, oh say, include the letter "M" in them. What is also noteworthy is that the stock price for Helios and Matheson, MoviePass' parent company, has stabilized. Yes, it has remained constant at a nadir-scraping 3 cents a share, but "stabilizing" is a word I never thought I'd use in conjunction with a MoviePass article. Watching Helios' daily stock price tumble used to be as entertaining as checking baseball box scores but the stock has remained in the 3-cent range since last Thursday.

What's going on here? Why all of a sudden is it all quiet on the MoviePass front? There are seemingly only three possibilities. The first is that MoviePass determined that the less said in the media about the company the better. MoviePass articles, both in industry trades as well as in the mainstream media, have gone from the company being hailed as the conquering saviors of the film business just a few months ago to cocktail party joke fodder. It may be thinking that the only way to attract whatever investors may be left out there is to ensure it doesn't rival the Kardashians for social media exposure. The main difference is that the Kardashians built an empire around social media. MoviePass is seeing its crumble as a result.

The second is that the company could be waiting for the end of August and September to play out, hoping that the seasonal downturn in the industry once the leaves turn brown will help stem the flow of cash stampeding out the front door. While the fall looks promising from a release schedule point of view, it hardly matches the IP power of the past few months at the box office.

The final thought is that the company has finally pared down its services to the point where it simply has nothing left to trim. The dramatic difference between MoviePass offerings from what it initially announced in 2017 to current day resembles the Before and After shots of weight loss advertisements on late night TV.

Perhaps this is all premature and the company will announce further changes to its subscription plans or take another shot at one of its competitors milliseconds after this article comes out. However, if that's not the case, then the lack of news coming from MoviePass may turn out to be the real news.

I have over 20 years of studio experience in the film business and am the Founder and CEO of Scout 53 Entertainment Consulting, which provides global film business analysis, content distribution and revenue generation opportunities for cinemas, producers and in-theatre tech...